


The Will of Fire's Redemption

by ZiquilaLeo



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst and Feels, Dreams vs. Reality, Gen, Guilt, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Naruto Canon Era, Reincarnation, Sad, Senju Hashirama reborn as Uzumaki Naruto, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:40:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21602368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZiquilaLeo/pseuds/ZiquilaLeo
Summary: Namikaze Minato unintentionally awakens his son's previous reincarnation by simultaneously using the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style while the Shinigami was slowly consuming his soul.Cue Senju Hashirama living as Uzumaki Naruto.-Free writing another Naruto Fanfic-
Relationships: Past Senju Hashirama/Uzumaki Mito, Senju Hashirama & Senju Tobirama, Senju Hashirama & Uchiha Madara
Comments: 6
Kudos: 107
Collections: Identity Crisis





	1. Chapter 1

Senju Hashirama didn't die the way he wanted. 

Just when he was so close to reaching the turning point of a new beginning of an Era of no more war...the First Great Shinobi War happened. It was there he died a noble death to protect the village he had created with his best friend and brother; and despite such an honorable sacrifice he willingly ran straight in headfirst, he had not wanted to die that way. 

He wanted to die of old age, in the presence of his children and grandchildren crying and wishing him a safe trip to the Pure Land, in the trembling embrace of his aged wife promising to live a little longer, in his bed breathing shallow breaths and not in a blood soaked battlefield choking on his own blood. 

The emotions he felt during his last moments were indistinguishable. There were too many to properly recognize which were which, too much of each to actually be able to understand the reasons that caused them. In the silence of the Shinigami's enclosing hands, he drowned in an ocean of uncertainties he never got the chance to filter through. 

Simply put, he died. Just not the way he wished. That was all he knew. 

Then, he knew pain. 

Not the kind of flesh wound and psychological pain that can permanently cripple a man. But PAIN. White searing pain that tore all the way to his soul and HURT him. A one of a kind, the ONLY of its kind he would never wish upon even his enemies. Nevermind the fact that he never wished pain upon ANYONE. 

Hashirama is victim to this pain for a long time (Too long for his liking) before it finally simmers down to a dull ache thrumming through his existence. 

It's as the dull ache turns into something less aching does he feel his senses coming back to him.

However, he can't see, hear, smell, taste, and touch.

Yet he can SEE, hundreds and hundreds of stars shinning in the darkness of his senses. He can HEAR, thousands and thousands of cries echoing in the darkness of his senses. He can SMELL, foulness and death of many growing in the darkness of his senses. He can TASTE, blood and ashes of people spreading in the darkness of his senses. 

He can TOUCH, each and every of them filling in the darkness of his senses. 

It makes him cry, scream, and howl in bouts of agony and rage he can't shake off. 

There are times he stops, but always is he crying more times than he's not. How can he stop when he's assaulted by losses that remind him of burying his little brothers who never got to live pass two digits? 

Eventually, the darkness gradually fades into his awareness of the Living. 

Embarrassingly for a shinobi of his caliber and experience, it takes a while for him to figure out what's so wrong with that. Admittedly, it's not his fault considering his senses are still oversensitive and his mind could hardly tell apart what he's seeing from what he's sensing with his currently abysmal sensory ability. Really, it's not. 

Still, he is in no way enlightened on how he's alive and breathing. He remembers dying, had felt death's assurance in the Shinigami's cold hands. There was absolutely no way he could have been saved from that kind of fatal wound. So WHY. If that wasn't bad enough, his body doesn't respond to his demands. He's TRAPPED somehow and unable to fully comprehend his situation. 

Doesn't mean he doesn't try.

He catches glimpses of beige walls, wooden fences and dark silhouettes silently moving around at the edges of his vision. The first thing that comes to mind is he's been captured and drugged, prompting him to stubbornly claw his way to stay AWARE and find a way to escape. 

But Hashirama is never given the chance to escape. 

Because not long after he can understand what's going on around him does he figure out why he's in such a pitiful state. 

Somehow, in some horrifying way, he had been turned into a babe. For all he knows, it could have been the result of Tobirama's experiments gone wrong in an attempt to save him; or, it could be that his enemies-

( _Nope. Nope. Nope. Not going to think about it_ (He'd rather not remember that incident with his Uzumaki-in-laws))

WHATEVER. IT. IS. He's a babe now. Tiny fists and feet and all.

Naturally. He bursts into tears. 

_I want Tobi and Mito._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Self-indulgent.


	2. Chapter 2

Hashirama's senses are too muddled for him to tell them apart. Too headache-inducing and hard to latch onto. So it comes as no surprise that it takes what feels like forever for him to form a coherent thought and not lose it within seconds. 

His body is that of a newborn child. That much he knows for sure.

Also, try as he might, he's unable to call upon his chakra and Bloodline Limit. Leaving the possibility of having to retrain his body to be able to mold chakra and weave Life through his clasped hands very high. 

There are other possibilities he finds himself constantly indulging himself to. Two of which that have been making him mentally tear his hair out; the two most likely of situations that have caused him to de-age. 

The first, and the one he believes to be more likely, is that there was an accident of a sort involving seals or mysterious Bloodline Limits during the time of his death. 

Sealing Techniques is a force to be reckoned with, proven time and time again by the Uzumaki Clan. He had personally witnessed his little brother invent a seal that enables him to teleport through space and cheat time. It was what hammered home what the Uzumaki had been trying to get him to understand for so long: that the sealing arts don't just stick to sealing objects in general, but can do so much more. 

Bloodline Limits are many in numbers too, and he doubts he's seen nor heard of every single one. Take the Uchiha Clan for example, and the wide-range of potential in their eyes. There were some Uchiha clansmen who had unknown pinwheels to the Senju–Madara being one of them, with eye poweress never seen and unbelievable if he had not seen it himself. 

Maybe Tobirama had tried saving him, maybe Mito, or perhaps the enemy had a Bloodline Limit that messes with another person's genetics. Really, it could be either. 

The less likely scenario...he finds himself unable to even entertain the idea despite hearing stories and legends surrounding it while growing up. 

Reincarnation and transmigration. 

Not only do they seem impossible, but isn't the whole point of them for a fresh start? To learn new things they hadn't had the chance to from the cycles before and be able to reap the karma they sowed in their previous life with no strings attached? If so, he shouldn't remember his life as Hashirama Senju. 

He can't have been reborn. 

Because Hashirama Senju has a little brother, a wife with kids of their own and a granddaughter who he loves oh so much. And the very thought of living with the knowledge that he may NEVER see any of his precious people again... 

Hashirama won't believe it. Because he already misses them, has been aware for a while now that he's been a babe for too long and has not seen nor felt the chakra of any of his family. 

Sure, he has complete faith that Tobirama will take care of the village and her people and their clan if he did die. There's even a high chance his little brother will recover quickly from his death, or bury his grief into making sure the village will survive the next war.

 _(He tried so HARD. What did he do wrong? Why did it have to come to violence_ again _? He had gifted the other Ninja Villages the Tailed Beasts as peace offerings. Had killed his brother all but in blood for the crimes the defector had committed against them. SO HOW COULD THEY–?)_

But, Hashirama? He had a family. Not just a Clan, but FAMILY. 

Forget the politics involved with his wife's clan, because he had fallen in love with her, still loves her now, and that love had been returned in equal measure. They had kids and a grandchild living in a village that had allowed them the childhood their generation could never indulge in. He had many friends who were enemies once upon a time and helping him reach for peace in the Land of Fire. 

He was living his dream. 

... _Was._

The tension between his little brother and childhood friend had been the first crack of reality pulling his dream at the seams. 

Then, Madara left. Had gone in the dead of the night and ripped a tear right in the middle of his dream with no warning. That was the second clue. 

Third. The third and final clue was when his friend came back and used the strongest of Tailed Beasts to try and blow his dream to smithereens. A dream they both had fought and killed for to make come true. 

He would have been happy to welcome his longtime friend home, would have gone the extra mile to pound some sense into him during their last fight and drag him back to the village kicking and screaming if he had to. But, Madara hadn't just defected and quietly hid, bidding for the right time to destroy everything they worked so hard to achieve. No, his former friend had gone and wrecked havoc throughout the other nations. Committing crimes befitting mercenaries of the Warring Clans Era and destroying any hope he had to help redeem the traitor. 

And Hashirama had chosen to kill Madara because of the threat he posed to their dream. Had killed the only person who had ever truly understood him. 

To make matters worse, not only had he lost a friend that day, his wife had volunteered herself to be the jailer of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox and from that point onwards, Mito was subjected to the foul chakra and hatred of the Tailed-Beast for the rest of her life. And the Uzumaki were known for their longevity.

For a man bestowed the title God of Shinobi, he was powerless in the face of such losses. 

He was unable to save a friend, had let his wife become a Jinchūriki, and then stubbornly ran headfirst to his death without waiting for appropriate backup.

His life had been awful as much as it was amazing. The bitterness always there to make the sweetness all the more precious. 

Hashirama had lived longer than many of his generation and the ones before. Of course, his path wasn't without it's life-changing obstacles. So much so he couldn't just plow on through without emotionally numbing himself so he wouldn't break from the dark abyss devouring his soul.

Even after becoming Hokage and running the village, he didn't have time to deal with most of the stuff in his personal life, including the emotional strain and thoughts that drained him too much to even think about. 

But now? In his current predicament? He had all the time in the world to digest all the what-ifs and regrets slowly clawing their way to the surface. As a full grown man stuck in the body of an infant what else is he to do?

Rarely does anyone come and visit him, and if so, it's only to tend to his needs as a babe. His sight is still blurry, his body too fragile, and no matter how much he cries, no one ever comes to comfort him. Even though he can feel chakra signatures nearby keeping watch over him, they leave him to this growing pit of loneliness he can't escape. 

So he won't believe he's been reborn. That in itself would be setting him up to only want to die again because everything he lives for is no more.

More importantly, however, he doesn't believe he deserves such a chance. 

No. He doesn't even WANT it. 

Not when he's still needed in his first life.

Despite all his failings as Senju Hashirama, he always did what he could for the greater good. Contrary to what most people who know him on a personal level believe, him being an over emotional optimist...is true. But the truth of the matter also is that he's actually been holding back the worse of it. 

He had to if he wanted to keep his Clan alive during the Warring Clans Era.

Which is why, if he somehow did survive the First Great Ninja War, then he damn well will do everything in his power to go back home and protect it. There are still many things left unfinished, most just beginning because of the next generation of a new era. 

And Hashirama Senju still exists. 

He'll make who ever thought they could get between him and his village regret doing so _(because he sure as hell can't recognize a single chakra signature in his sensory range so obviously they're enemies)_ and have a little talk about his tiny problem.

_(It still doesn't change the fact that he is left with nothing to do but to wallow in self-pity until then.)_


End file.
